Mondays are going to be my weigh in days and that naturally lends itself to the day I reflect on how I did over the last week. Weighing in everyday would very likely turn me into an insane person. Maybe I would if I got one of those fancy scales that updates your weight once you step on, just because of the fanciness of it all. But, let’s be honest here, I don’t have the money for that. SO every Monday morning I’ll stomp down the stairs in my pajamas and step on my cheap Target scale and peer at the numbers with my sleepy eyes and type it into my app. I did amp myself up enough to step on the scale this morning and I was greeted with good news – I lost 4.4 lbs! It did feel nice to know that I was moving in the right direction even if half of that is really water weight. I am still struggling to even come close to my step goal, but managing my calories paid off this week.

Speaking of goals, there are a lot of individual goals that make up The Big Goal. In a vague sense, my goal is get healthy. But what does that mean? Mostly it means that I need to lose weight. I also need to get more fit and I’d like to have all my PCOS symptoms go away. By setting smaller, daily (or weekly) goals, I will be able to achieve The Big Goal. At least, that’s the idea. I have a lot of weight to lose. It’s a number so large it seems insurmountable. Ridiculous even. To keep myself from getting overwhelmed or disheartened by it’s largeness, I set a smaller goal. I would like to lose 25 pounds by the end of May by averaging a 2 pound weight loss each week. When you weigh as much as I do, a 2 pound per week weight loss goal is not crazy. If you weigh 150 and your ideal weight is 145, doing that in 2 weeks might actually be really hard and not sustainable. As much as I’d like to think that I can take on this weight 25 pounds/3 months at a time, that ratio will probably change the closer to my goal I get. Even that is too much to worry about right now. It’s only been one week and I’m taking it a day at a time.

Every day, all I focus on are these goals:

Water – 90 ounces. I like to get a minimum of 64, but my doctor recommended I be trying to aim for about 90. It’s not as hard as I anticipated because I try not to get any calories from my beverages and ordering water when you are out saves money.

Calories – 1500-2000. I know that seems like a wide margin, but I try to let my FitBit guide me. It gives you an approximation of how many calories you’ve burned vs how many you’ve eaten. So if my day is more on the sedentary side, then I eat less than a more active day. The app has a cute little speedometer graphic that tells you if you are within the ideal range.

Steps – 10,000. I haven’t hit this goal more than 3 times since I’ve gotten my FitBit, but I’ve definitely improved my average number. I want to always get more than 5,000, but my real goal is 10,000.

I focus on hitting these goals each day, or doing my best. I don’t want to get bogged down by the prospect of my larger goals. I am confident that if I keep myself on target daily, I will achieve those goals down the line. It seems strange to me that after all of the false starts I’ve had, this time feels like the real deal. It’s all finally clicking now.

What are your daily goals? Have you ever felt something “click” like this?

Good news, guys. I mostly did ok yesterday. I did not hit my steps goal, but I did stay within my calories AND got in all my water. It seems lame to get excited about stuff like this, but I’m going to cling to this FitBit app until I either die or create new habits. What are those habits going to be? I don’t know what will stick, but here is my game plan for today.

6:30 AM

Alarm goes off. Groggily roll over and turn it off. Go back to sleep.

7:15 AM

Second alarm goes off. Pick up phone and diddle around on the internet. Realize I never set my FitBit to sleep mode last night. Not sure what to do with the sleep information anyway. Keeping internetting.

7:28 AM

Sister walks in and clearly sees me on my phone. She still acts as if I’m asleep and yells at me to wake up. I calmly explain how bitchy she is being. She gets in the shower. I resign myself to not having a morning shower. Afternoon shower will have to do.

7:45 AM

Sister opens the door. I haven’t moved any muscles except those that help me scroll through Facebook. Sister is livid. She storms off.

7:52 AM

I make my way downstairs, fully dressed and ready to go. Grab LUNCH I PACKED LAST NIGHT and the bag of groceries I need for work. We are sure to be late.

8:40 AM

Late to work. No one says anthing. Work work work.

9:00 AM

I eat the oatmeal I keep in my drawer at work. Apparently breakfast is important.

Sometime between 9 and 10 AM

I add a food to FitBit’s database. Wish adding food on the app was more straightforward. They should call Lose It and find out what they are doing.

10:50 AM

Decide to write this post.

10:59 AM

Realize this post is probably boring or weird, but continue writing.

12:00 PM

After a meeting, go downstairs and eat lunch at my desk. Also, do “work.”

1:00 PM

Leave the building for my official lunch break and see how many 1 mile loops I can make in 45 minutes. Lust after the cool houses in the neighborhood around my office. Resign myself to being #foreverpoor.

1:45 – 5:00 PM

Do more “work.” Obsessively check FitBit despite knowing that nothing has changed because I’ve been sitting the entire time.

5:00 PM to Whenever I Saunter Up to Bed

Drive home. Try to determine if I can have the new Evol street tacos I bought last night and some kind of strategic dessert. Pace around my house until I hit 10k steps. Try to convince Alex to either walk the dogs with me or get him to do some kind of chore. Probably do none of these things and binge watch the first season of The Unbreakable Kimmie Schmidt again because Alex hasn’t seen it. Sink into bed and dream about weird shit, like always.

The take aways from this very strange post are that I packed a lunch for work (something I haven’t done in a while) and that I’m going to walk a bunch at lunch. The weather in Chicago is supposed to hit 60 degrees so I’ll be going on my first lunch walk of the year.

It’s an eating and laziness problem. Here’s the thing: I love to eat a lot of food and have little to no perseverance. I also have a condition called PCOS. I honestly don’t know if that contributes to my weight gain or my weight contributes to it. Either way, I’m not doing everything I can to combat it. Also, I am fairly certain that I’m teetering on the edge of this causing other serious health problems. Before, I was just contending with it being inconvenient to go clothes shopping. Now, more physical activities are getting difficult and I’m beginning to realize that I’m not filled with boundless abilities like I was as a teenager. So this all needs to change, that much is obvious. How, though? Please don’t start in with the, “eat right and work out.” That much is also obvious. The question is how do I go from hella overweight to healthy specifically? What works and what doesn’t work?

Here are the things I know that don’t work:

Assuming I’m going to get enough physical activity during my current average day.

Eating whatever I feel like, consequences be damned.

Not talking to people about my goals.

Not keeping track of how I’m feeling.

Not reaching out to people who have been in my shoes and got out of this lifestyle.

Since I know these things don’t work, I can’t keep doing them. I think, to begin, I should try doing the opposite.

Start pushing myself to get in more activity. I weigh a fricken boatload. I don’t really feel comfortable sharing the exact number right now, but trust me when I say it is higher than any human should weigh. This leads me to believe that jumping into an intense work out regimen would probs be kind of bad for me. I have a FitBit Flex that I wear almost all the time. Spoiler alert: I’m going to be wearing it all the time from now on. I’ve been using it for almost a year and I honestly really like it. It keeps pretty accurate measure of how many steps I take and how well I sleep. The starting step goal on it is 10,000. I’ve hit or exceeded that number exactly 3 times. My goal is to hit 10k steps a day for the next 3 months. If you use FitBit in any capacity, feel free to add me! A requirement for me to do my job is to be sitting pretty much the whole day and the competition is a great motivator.

Using FitBit to get a hold of my lifestyle.

Oh, food, you fickle bitch. I love eating and trying new food and I’m never going to be one of those “clean eating” people. It just isn’t realistic for me. First off, this is America. Also, I live in the Midwest. Third, my neighborhood is off of a stretch of road called Restaurant Row. Great food literally surrounds me in large quantities and I’m not interested in completely letting that go. That being said, keeping on with what I’m doing would just be damn stupid. I have a few strategies that I am going to start implementing to try to curb the ridiculous food habits I have. Most importantly, way way way less eating out. Which brings me to my next point, because I never go out alone.

I need to draft a team. You think I’m the only person in my house who needs to reconsider their lifestyle? No, honey. I need to tell the people around me about the changes that are happening and why they are happening. We all need to be a part of prepping, cooking, and shopping for food. We all need to let me browse through Target/Ikea/The Mall as long as I want so I can get my steps in. Gone are the days of instant gratification. I need them to be there for me when I really want some super delicious deep dish pizza.

Maybe instead of eating my feelings about eating my feelings, I could just blog about it. Like, “Oh man, I couldn’t find a dress to wear and I’m really upset,” instead of eating a doughnut. This cyclical shit is aggravating. I feel a little better just for having written that here. I feel a lot better by having written everything above this sentence. Putting it out there in the world and working out my thoughts here is pretty therapeutic. I know the internet is judgy, but let’s just be better here, ok?

As much as people love to say how fat America is, the truth is that there are a ton of people out there dedicated to fitness and health. Many of those people have been where I am now and have turned their health around. I need those people leaving me tips and being my sherpas through what will hopefully be the most challenging part of my life. Because on those days when you’ve worked so hard for something and you feel like the results aren’t there (and I’ve experienced this) you need the person who worked through it to tell you that not all is in vain.

In my quest to pursue these goals, I’ll be trying a bunch of different stuff and I’ll be posting it all here (and probably some stuff here and some real time stuff here). Do you have suggestions? Have you been where I am now? Talk to me!

I turned 25. I have to stop saying I’m in my early 20’s. I’m exactly mid-20’s. 10 years ago I would have said that being 25 means you are an adult. I can drive, vote, drink, and rent a car – all the things adults do! Now? You aren’t an adult until 35. It’s official. I just bought my own car. I just got a job with benefits. These things are old hat for real adults.

I have to remind myself that I’ve lived on my own (with roommates) for 3 years, that I’ve been paying for my phone and car insurance for forever, that I’ve been consistently working for 12 years. People trust me to take care of their ailing pets when they go on vacation, and with their fragile little children when they want a date. I have married friends. I have friends with kids. I’ve been in the same relationship for half a decade and we didn’t start dating while I was in high school. FML, I’m a grown up.

Then I relax and realize that this time of my life is probably going to be the most liberating. I have to go to work, but I can party or chill or do whatever the f I want all weekend. I can go on week long vacations to places that aren’t filled with sad teens in cartoon costumes. I can have dessert first, watch all the Netflix I want, wear weird trendy clothes, no curfew, no kids, no mortgage, it’s not weird for me to use SnapChat, but I can also afford to go out. This time of my life is all the fun of adulthood without all the stress. I’m going to fricken relish it.

It probably doesn’t surprise anyone when they hear that weight gain or obesity are often accompanied by self image and confidence issues. For me it has always been a cycle of one causing the other causing the other. The most contentious symptom of all of it is that I hate and often refuse to get my picture taken. This issue is what the people in my life focus on the most. I have maybe 3 pictures of my boyfriend and I together in 5 years. I hate family photos.

In an effort to slow/stop the cycle of self-loathing leading to eating leading to more self-loathing, I have been trying to take more photos with me in them and sharing those pictures with friends and family. This happens mostly in Snapchat because the pictures aren’t going to anyone I don’t want and they can only be viewed for a short period of time. I’ve occasionally Instagrammed a photo of myself, but they make me nervous.

I don’t think I’m going to become some Kim Kardashian level selfie taker, but so far I’ve gotten noticeably more comfortable with having my photo taken. I’m hoping that this little confidence boost will curb some of my emotional eating problems. I know what I’m doing when I’m doing it. It’s kind of like emotional turmoil that I’m indulging in, but simultaneously indulging in food. Merica.

This is my little attempt at healing some psychological issues, but I know the real work comes with lifestyle changes. It just seems like not a lot of people talk about working on yourself emotionally in addition to the physical stuff. Obviously I still have a lot to change, but first let me take a #selfie.